Monday, October 5, 2009

I will never eat cake again!!

Hola!!Well I don't have tonz of time but I just want to thank everyone for all their letters, packages, and love!!! i had an awesome birthday and did miss all of you but it was great.. this week was amazing also.. Monday after e-mailing we went shopping at the mall because my shoes broke so i bought new shoes.. then we went to go to lunch at outback and it was closed.. i was so sad until later that day I got a letter and a giftcard for outback from Landrea, Thanks Jane.. you know me so well! we went to go to Johnny Corinos a restuarant instead... ate our meal and were getting ready to pay when the waitress said that our bills had been taken care of already.. there happened to be a random member in the restuarant.. saw us and paid for our meals. super nice. At night we went to the Elmore families and they made me a yummy chicken dish and made a homemade chocolate cake that was to die for and since she works for mary kay she gave me some mary kay products for my birthday.. it was perfect! They really are like my family here and i started crying when i thanked them for everything.. i was feeling a little homesick so it was nice to have them and their love for me! We then went to the Aguilars who are recent converts and they also made me my favorite mexican dish of chicken tinga and torillas.. they also got me cake, didn't push my face in it just wiped it all over my face and their son Giovani learned how to play happy birthday on the violin for me!! ha ha.. But i think my greatest birthday gift was that the Elmore and the Aguilars called my trainer Jessica Brundage so i could talk to her.. and guess what SHE IS ENGAGED!! yep she is not even waiting for me (Love you Hermanita!! ha ha) she is getting married on January 29th and is sooooo happy!! I'm excited for her but mom and dad you have to go to the reception since i can't.. then that same night I found out that Eduardo is getting married to a lady from the ward!! ha ha.. I was so thrilled... truly he has changed his entire life!Tuesday we had district meeting, volunteered at the Bishop's storehouse where i got to help the people who speak spanish which was really fun!! then we went to an appointment we made with a street contact named Berta.. we knocked on her door and it was definitely not her!!But we asked Ana who answered the door if we could teach her and she let us in.. we taught her and her sister and nephew and they were so intense into the lesson.. her sister Rosa really wanted her son to learn about God.. It's amazing how God places people in our paths that really want to learn even if we had the appointment with them or not. Then we had another birthday dinner with the Quinn family and Sister Quinn made me a German Chocolate cake because it is my favorite (oh and i forgot to tell you that the management office where i live, JJ and Jorge bought me a cake on my birthday... so this was my 6th cake of my birthday!... honest i never want another sweet again!) Then we went and taught a less active in the ward named Joel the first lesson.. he was baptized when he wasyounger and knows nothing so when we asked him how he felt at the end of the lesson he just said.. i feel like i need to come back to church!! then his mom said the prayer and was bawling and prayed about how thankful she was...I pray her really gets it.Wednesday was pretty much an amazing day.. do you remember the Flores family we taught then had to hand over to the elders because they weren't in our area.. well they have been avoiding us for over two months and would never meet with us again.. well our day started out at 8 AM with Hermano Flores calling us and asking when we were coming to teach his kids again.. so we said how about tonight! Then we went to an appointment at 9 AM because it was the only time this media referral named Wilbert could meet with us. We started the lesson with God is our loving Heavenly Father and he was trying to define what he thought the Godhead was... he was having such a difficult time so i read D&C 130:22.. the just stared at me and said.. exactly.. so simple! Then it was like everything else we taught him he COMPLETELY agreed with just because we were able to help him define his own belief of God with a scripture.. it was awesome! Then we went to contact a member referral named Naomi well once again Naomi wasn't there but her roommate Maria was so we started talking to her and found out she had a friend in honduras that was a member but has passed away so we started teaching her the Plan of Salvation and then she started crying (I don't know what i make people cry.. i should work on that!! ha ha) then she told us a couple months ago she had lost a baby and had always wondered where he was.. I am so thankful for preach my gospel and the opportunity we have to listen to the spirit and teach to the needs of the investigators!That night we had two member present lessons.. the first one was with the Flores family and we taught them them the Plan of Salvation lesson too and at the end of the lesson the dad just looked at us and said When are you coming back? tomorrow? You have God with you.. i can tell! Then he started telling us stories from his own mission and we made an appointment to come back the next night and teach them.. then he said I want to baptize my kids!! The fire is starting to ignite in his eyes again and he is beginning to understand the importance of it in the lives of his kids! Then we had a lesson with a lady named Sandra Garcia they friend of Verenice.. we taught her a powerful first and the members testimonies were amazing.. we all kneed at the end of the lesson and prayed and Sandra said such an innocent and amazing prayer.Thursday was planning... dinner with the Garibaldi's who still don't have a job and I am so sad about it.. i pray for them daily.. they aresuch an amazing family! They made me my favorite tres leche cake.. yep more cake! Then we had to cancel an appointment becasue their was such a bad thunderstorm for an hour then it was like bright and blue skies.. weird texas weather.. honestly! We taught the Flores kids with a cute young woman Yazmin Ruiz and it was so funny because we taught them the Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom by using a picture of a temple in a page protector and took a red dry erase marker and put marks all over the temple for grafiti.. it was really a good example then we read out of the for Strength for youth one by one.. but it was super funny because it got to the young womans turn and she had to read the really bold paragraph in the sexual purity section.. ha ha her face was red!! I guess it doesn't phase me anymore!! ha ha Friday we had an AWESOME lesson with Rosibel on Prophets... she is finally starting to get it and we clarified the part about praying to know. she thought we were asking her to pray TO joseph smith not ABOUT joseph smith.. So knows she is getting it.. We went to Esperanza's and asked her all the baptismal interview questions.. the answered perfectly, now her boyfriend just needs to marry her and he won't. So she is moving back to honduras in a couple months... So I guess I have a baptism referrall for Chad Anderson :)!! We went and taught Estefania a new investigators and were teaching her a lesson and she said oh wait i have a scripture about that from my reading.. then she opened the BOOK OF MORMON and read us a scripture exactly about what we were talking about!! She is so full of questions and just dying to know... I love teaching people so prepared to listen and change. We then went and visited a part member family and her husband who is not a member wasn't there and she just kept telling us how she didn't think he would want to meet with us.. then he came home from work as we were leaving and said When are you coming back to teach me!! ha ha.. he made the appointment with us for this week! Saturday morning we at breakfast with some members, went to General conference in the Coppell building.. Neil's talk on repentance was amazing.. he is so humble and filled with the spirit.. During the afternoon session i was getting kinda homesick again.. just thinking what all y'all were doing with conference and how i would be normally watching it with y'all.. then right when i was thinking that i was watching the choir and saw AUNT JANENE singing in the choir.. I know that my redeemer lives!! what a tender mercy.. love you nene!!Sunday we passed by Rosibels to do what i thought was wake her up for conference before the Garibaldi's passed by to get her for conference and she opened the door all dressed up and beautiful.. She came to conference and i was so estatic.. there were 7 investigators at conference for the first session on sunday and each talk answered a different question for our investigators especially the talk on personal revelation by Elder Nelson was perfect for Rosibel and her need to know if prophets are true!.. Elder Holland's talk was one of my favorites.. he is sooooo powerful and Elder McAllister (i think that is his name) was amazing.. he pretty much bible bashed for fifteen minutes!! he should come to this mission for a couple days!! That night we made some stop bys and found an inactive family with a boy that is ready to get baptized they having been to church in a year but they are going to start coming back and we are going to start teaching the family once a week to prepare the boy to get baptized.. we were really blessed this week and taught alot of lesson and met every single one of our goals which was amazing! We are trying to work hard and for that we are seeing alot of miracles! .. and yes i'm still exhausted but it is getting easier to work through the tiredness because of the help of the savior.. this morning we studied with Elder Moala and yep he brought four cakes and ice cream for my belated birthday... so i think i totalled a 11 or 12 cakes for my birthday!! I just hope never to see another cake again in my life :)!!! well I love each one of you and miss you tonz.. please keep our investigators in you prayers so many of them are so close to making the sacred convenant of baptism and i pray i can be a good enough teacher and help them come to this decision and grow in theirtestimonies.. I love you all.. thanks for everything.. Y'ALL HAVE A BLESSED DAY!!Hermana Barbie